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Gear List

Here is the gear we are using. The brands/styles I am listing are what we have or are an ideal recommendation. If you search online for the items you will probably find them online at different sites much cheaper than on the brand sites I listed.

>Backpack

GoLite Jam 50 (Hendo) - company has gone out of business, pack is very poorly constructed and I would NOT recommend anyone purchase this backpack. I will be purchasing the Hyperlite Mountain Gear 3400Southwest Pack next.

>Sleeping Bag Liner – Whatever the rating is of the liner, for example the one below is 25 degrees, the liner adds 25 degrees of additional temp protection to your bag rating. So if your bag is rated at 30-40 degrees a 25 degree liner inside your 30- 40 degree bag will give you the protection a 5-15 degree bag alone would give you. In the warm months we would just sleep in our liners on top of our bags. In the winter we stay toasty warm.

>Tent - tent, poles,pegs, footprint (ground cloth, most common and lightest option is a piece of Tyvek sheeting from Home Depot/Lowes), we have a 3-person, but out here on the trail most individuals carry a 2-person with the below the most popular. This allows you to get you and your pack inside.

>Water bottles – we carry each 2 liters of water in a 2 liter Platypus Hydration System and an empty 1 liter Nalgene bottle which we use to collect and treat our water (we use a SteriPen). The additional 1 liter Nalgene bottle also allows us to carry 3 liters of water on long dry stretches of trail. If you use the Sawyer water filter instead of the SteriPen to treat your water, you could carry an additional 1 liter bladder instead of a heavier Nalgene bottle for long dry stretches.

>Wet Weather Bottom- we wear these for wind protection and warmth during the colder months and locations, when we started in March-April and in the White Mountains and Maine. Otherwise we do not carry or use our rain pants in the warm/hot summer months

>Hiking Umbrella - Hendo carries a hiking umbrella and loves it. During the summer it is too hotto try and wear a rain coat of any kind, you end up soaking wet from sweat. Hendo now uses a hiking
umbrella when hiking in the rain. It feeds through her shoulder strap so she can hike hands-free, it also allows you to eat in the dry.

>Head lamp - We have gone through several different headlamps and have finally found and like the the Princeton Tec Sync headlamp. Most headlamps now have a push-button on/off switch, this design does NOT work well as the button always seems to bet pushed and your headlamp accidentally turned on and batteries run down. The Princeton Tec Sync has a dial button which does not accidentally turned on.